Many ceiling fans primarily require the blades must be attached to the motor housing bracket arms by tightening multiple screws and the like. With most ceiling fans having up to five blades and each blade requiring three or more screws, the number of screw tightening operations can result in the installer having to separately screw approximately 15 screws or more per ceiling fan installation. Installing more than one fan in a home or building further compounds this installation problem.
Often these screws can become lost during the assembly operation. Rotating screws into the blades and blade arms of a ceiling mounted motor is not only difficult to accomplish, but results in most ceiling fans in the market place having visible screws that are unsightly. Furthermore, the underside location of these fastener screws detract from the appearance of the ceiling fan itself.
Installing more than one fan in a home or building further compounds this installation problem.
Another problem with using multiple loose screws occurs from the ceiling fans being run under continuous vibration conditions where the screws can loosen causing the blades to be accidentally released and result in damage to surrounding property and people in the vicinity.
An additional problem comes from ceiling fan blades needing to be cleaned to remove dirt and dust buildup. Current techniques have relied on manually holding brushes to the blades themselves which inherently tires the muscles in the cleaner's neck, shoulders, arms and hands. This messy cleaning with brushes causes the dirt to fall on both the cleaner and furniture and flooring below the fan. Having to remove blades by unscrewing multiple screws over one's head would also not be practical.
Attempts have been made at changing the attachment methods for the blades but still fail to overcome all the problems presented above. U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,947 to Rezek describes a cover for covering the blade to motor connections but still uses screw fasteners that have the problems described above. U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,284 to Monrose III et al. is entitled a “Detachable Blades for Ceiling Fans” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,585 to Yan has a removable pin connection for ceiling fan blades, but each of these patents still requires screw on brackets for both the motor housing and the blades.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,396,352 to Pearce and U.S. Pat. No. 5,520,515 to Bailey et al. describe pitch adjustment attachments for ceiling fans but also still require screw on brackets between both the motor housing and the attached blades. A still further problem of many of these detachable ceiling fan type blades is that natural centrifugal forces of the spinning fans increase the chances of dislodging the blades.
The assignee of this invention created the popular QUICK CONNECT® ceiling fan blade systems, where the installer used blades and blade arms, or blade arms and rotors where enlarged headed fasteners fit into wide portions of key hole type slots where the enlarged headed fasteners and keyhole slots were slid together so that the fasteners would be locked in place; and other types of fast assembly ceiling fan systems. See for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,010,306; 6,171,059; 6,336,792; 6,352,411; 6,666,652; 6,802,694; 6,872,053; 7,281,899; 7,396,210; 7,766,622; 7,857,592; and 7,927,076.
However, the subject inventors have now discovered other techniques for the quick installation of ceiling fans that also do not require multiple loose screws and the like, to attach the blades to the ceiling fan arms.